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Q — Quvenzhané Wallis: Look, we don’t know how many ways to tell you this, but you just need to go already and check out this young girl’s performance inBeasts of the Southern Wild. Beasts appears in Vulture’s Summer Movie Alphabet (two letters!).

So, to give you a jump on the film that gurus of gold will inevitably be discussing and dissecting throughout the Screen Actors Guild awards, the BAFTAs, the Golden Globes and on through to inexorable conclusion at Hollywood and Highland, herewith, The Daily Beast has provided a handy primer on Beasts of the Southern Wild’s…

“Regarding Wallis’ performance as Hushpuppy: it isn’t one. It’s a fact. Onscreen she simply is, a being as elemental, incontestable and strong as the advancing aurochs. She was 6 when the film was shot, yet the ferociousness of her presence – the anger and wisdom inside her – suggest someone older or ageless. Meanwhile, Ben Richardson‘s…

The plot is almost secondary to the cohesive network of very naturalistic overtones onscreen, though the events are certainly significant. Around the time of a hurricane, which may or may not be Katrina, on a bayou around New Orleans called “The Bathtub,” Hushpuppy and Wink do their best to survive the daily turmoil of living…

You can make “Beasts of the Southern Wild” into an allegory of anything you want. It is far too detailed and specific to fit easily into general terms. The Bathtub is this place in this time, and how can it “stand for” anything else? This film is a remarkable creation, imagining a self-reliant community without…

I have this collection of Cinefex magazines that are all out of print, and they’re from the 80s to the early 90s. It’s completely my secret weapon. They’re magazines I had when I was a little kid that I would obsessively look over before I could even read. I would obsessively look at these pictures and think,…

“The thing is, all films come from Hollywood or New York,” Zeitlin says. “Even when people come here, they’re using a model invented somewhere else, which is a ridiculous thing. What other art form comes only from two cultures? There needs to be a movement to bring film outside of those places, and to make…

[Hushpuppy] is the film’s central narrator and the dialogue the writers have given her reaches a level of poetic balladry that nearly sings of grit and determination. That tone is matched by the music. Composer Dan Romer and Zeitlin collaborated to create a more ethereal Cajun sound, as flavorful and lively as ever, but somehow…

To find those performers, the “Beasts” casting department followed the canvassing model employed by President Obama (several members of the team even worked on his 2008 election). But even as they spread their net far and wide, the casting agents and producers struggled to land leading players. After looking at some 4,000 children for the role of…

Played by Quvenzhané Wallis, an untrained sprite who holds the camera’s attention with a charismatic poise that might make grown-up movie stars weep in envy, Hushpuppy is an American original, a rambunctious blend of individualism and fellow feeling. In other words, she is the inheritor of a proud literary and artistic tradition, following along a…